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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   30148 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 14, 2023

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Texas tries to put Planned Parenthood out of business again(and might succeed this time)

https://www.texastribune.org/2023/08/15/texas-abortion-planned-parenthood-lawsuit/

Last year, the state filed a federal lawsuit claiming Planned Parenthood improperly billed Medicaid for $10 million in payments during the period when the state was trying to remove the organization from the program.

Texas is seeking more than $1.8 billion in reimbursement, penalties and fees.

So Texas wants to lawfare Planned Parenthood out of being able to operate. This isn't new. What is new is this part:

U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a conservative who previously worked on anti-abortion cases as a religious liberty lawyer, will hear arguments from both sides today in Amarillo.

"A conservative who previously worked on anti-abortion cases as a religious liberty lawyer" is a technically accurate description of Matthew Kacsmaryk. It is, however, leaving out the context that was the judge who suspended FDA approval for mifepristone, had only previously worked for conservative activist groups, and also got handpicked by the plaintiffs. There is a 0.0% chance he will rule in favor of Planned Parenthood under any circumstances.

So what's the practical effect?

The 2022 lawsuit, filed by Paxton before he was impeached this year, argues that Planned Parenthood erred by not appealing the initial termination through administrative channels and instead pursuing the case through the courts.

Though they’re seeking to claw back $10 million in payments, they’ve asked the judge to order Planned Parenthood to pay an additional two times that value, plus civil penalties and interest from the day the payment was billed as well as expenses, costs and attorneys fees.

The estimated $1.8 billion payment would likely bankrupt Texas’ three Planned Parenthood affiliates several times over at a moment the organization argues they are needed more than ever.

So basically similar to what New York tried with the NRA. It should go without saying that while I find Planned Parenthood an unsympathetic defendant, this would not be happening to a less politically charged organization and 180 times the overbilling amount is just absurd. Also the legal interpretation seems dubious and probably would've been dismissed by a less biased judge.

I do want to point out some incredible naivety:

“Our organization knows we always have to be making decisions that are the most ethical and the most compliant with any rule or regulation out there, so it just felt like a great injustice,” she said. “I had hoped that if you play by the rules and do the right thing, it will turn out right, but that’s not the case.”

PP is, uh, not going to get left alone in the culture wars, and that's their fault for constantly making themselves a target in every way they can come up with. It's fair to point to people who don't have access to whatever healthcare services they provide(do they actually provide mammograms? The claim seems debunked but the people who did the debunking are not fans of PP) but trying to paint Planned Parenthood as an innocent victim of broadsides unleashed for no reason, even if it's playing pretty hardball, is not totally in contact with reality. Planned Parenthood is not in any universe apolitical and their side did after all start the trend of trying to punish the opposition.

It really is so wonderfully charming how devoted Texas Republicans are to ensuring poor and underclass women are forced into having more babies than they currently do. This certainly won’t lead to problems down the road, because impoverished single mothers famously raise the most well-adjusted sons who commit crime at well-below-average rates.

Hopefully SCOTUS eventually limits this specific form of depressing ridiculousness.

Why is it hard to believe that pro-lifers really, honestly think that abortion is murder? If they believe that it really is murder, the level of restraint they've shown in sticking to lawfare and eventually succeeding in some limited fashion is a pretty remarkable story. I disagree with their starting point, but that's hardly the point when it comes to their actions.

I still have no idea how anyone can honestly believe that the Supreme Court has any meaningful role to play in this at all. I suppose penumbral emanations are powerful things, but it seems pretty obvious to me that there simply no Constitution-based policy to be had.

Why is it hard to believe that pro-lifers really, honestly think that abortion is murder?

The fact that a lot of pro-lifers are reluctant to call for criminal penalties for the woman getting the abortion and instead place all liability on the doctor does make me think they don't really think it's equivalent to murder. That's certainly not how we would handle a woman who hired a doctor to euthanize her 3 month old baby. We would charge them both.

I do think they actually believe it's immoral and I don't expect the eugenic style arguments to convince any but the most confused pro lifers (ie people who are only defending the pro life side because it's the republican position who never really personally thought it through) but i think only a minority are consistent in their belief that it's 'murder'

The fact that a lot of pro-lifers are reluctant to call for criminal penalties for the woman getting the abortion

And here we go again! Another time this one is trotted out!

Pro-abortion: If you lot really thought it was murder, you'd put the woman in jail! You don't really mean what you say, the real reason is that you hate women and want to punish them for being sexually active!

Someone suggests doing just that.

Pearls are clutched all over the Usual Spaces by the Usual Faces: We said it ! We told you! The monsters hate women and want to punish them for being sexually active! Vote for us or they'll throw you in jail for having a miscarriage!!!!

Remember what they said about Trump on this? So thank you for your very kind invitation, but I think I won't stick my foot into the bear trap, if it's all the same with you:

Donald Trump said women who undergo abortions should be punished if the procedure is made illegal. In an interview for a town hall meeting to air on MSNBC Wednesday night, Trump said "there has to be some form of punishment" for women.

While most Republican officeholders and candidates oppose abortion rights, few have publicly stated positions on whether there should be legal penalties for women who have abortions. Most believe it is the physicians who perform them who should be prosecuted.

...Still, Trump's remarks managed to inflame both sides of the abortion issue.

The abortion rights advocacy organization NARAL Pro-Choice America called Trump's comments "a new low." The group's president, Ilyse Hogue, said, "Not only is this an unhinged position far from where the American people are, but it's sure to endanger women were he to become president."

...The presidential campaigns were also quick to criticize Trump. Ted Cruz tweeted:

And Cruz's campaign chairman, Chad Sweet, said on CNN that Cruz "shares the views of the pro-life movement, which for years has focused on punishing those who perform the abortions, not the women who get them." John Kasich responded that he would "absolutely not" agree with punishing women for having an abortion. "It's a difficult enough situation, to try to punish somebody."

In tweets, Democrat Hillary Clinton called Trump's comment "horrific and telling," while Bernie Sanders called it "shameful."

Pro-abortion: If you lot really thought it was murder, you'd put the woman in jail!

Yes. Unironically, yes.

You don't really mean what you say, the real reason is that you hate women and want to punish them for being sexually active!

I think pro-lifers mean what they say as far as being opposed to abortion, but I almost never meet a pro-lifer who claims to believe abortion is literally murdering a baby who wants to literally charge a woman who has an abortion with the same crime that a woman who literally murders her baby would be charged with.

Yes, you are correct that it's a bear trap of a question. It is tactically sound for pro-lifers to avoid it. But it's a bear trap because of what it reveals. Either you don't literally believe abortion is the same as murdering a baby (you might believe it's very bad, you might believe it's kind of like murdering a baby, you might believe an innocent baby died, but you don't believe the woman having an abortion has the full moral culpability of a woman who intentionally murders her baby) or you have to explain why it shouldn't be treated the same criminally. I've only ever met a handful of pro-lifers who will bite that bullet and say "Yes, she's a murderer." Everyone else has answers that sound like either cognitive dissonance or disingenuousness.

Trump's answer "horrified both sides" because he was being too honest and saying the quiet part out loud. Yes, if it's illegal, it makes no sense to say "Oh, but we don't mean punish the mother - she's in such a difficult situation." Or else you are, at the very least, admitting that it is some lesser crime than murder.

"Oh, but we don't mean punish the mother - she's in such a difficult situation."

How about this variant? "Oh, but we don't mean punish the mother - she's been fooled by a billion dollar industry and a corrupt culture into believing it’s not murder, it’s her right and freedom as a woman and also her only way out of poverty."

It’s a scenario which has one equivalent, which is conveniently its culture war inverse: "Oh, but we don't mean punish the soldier - he's been fooled by a trillion dollar industry and a corrupt culture into believing it’s not murder, it’s his patriotic honor and duty as a man and also his only way out of poverty."

I don't think the equivalence to soldiers is convincing. Even anti-war activists generally do not hold soldiers responsible for being sent to fight by their country - but they can be held responsible for specific war crimes.

"Women have been fooled by a billion-dollar industry into believing that murdering babies is okay" - okay, but once you cripple that industry and make it illegal, why wouldn't you prosecute them? How is this different from saying gang bangers saw no other way out of their environment and therefore shouldn't be prosecuted, we should only go after, say, the cartels?

Your answers are typical, and they all boil down to not holding women responsible in the same way you'd hold them responsible for strangling a baby in its crib.

once you cripple that industry and make it illegal, why wouldn't you prosecute them?

At that point, I’d consider it, because at that point, it’s legally considered murder with conspiracy to murder, and they’d know it without excuse. I’d gladly go after PP for RICO today and the abortion providers for conspiracy to murder right now, with impeachment for any legislator voting down a single-issue “born-alive” bill.

I’ve met two women who murdered their child in the womb far past the “kid has an active brain” stage, one a wife on reddit for economic reasons and one a single IRL for emotional reasons (her ex was revealed to be a jerk and she wasn’t ready for single motherhood). Neither considered the child a real person yet. Would I treat them like baby stranglers at worst or concentration camp guards at Nuremberg at best? The first, yes, the second, no. The cognitive dissonance would be too shattering for her and send her to suicide.

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